Norwich’s thriving nightlife scene is home to buzzing venues, energetic creativity and a whole host of up-and-coming and local music artists. And thanks to the annual Wild Paths Festival (14 – 18 October 2025), you can immerse yourself in live performances, talks and experiences from genres that include jazz, hip-hop, jungle and everything in between!
Across the city in venues that include nightclubs, pubs, a cinema and even churches and an underground street, this is your chance to see your favourite local artist in an intimate setting or get introduced to a new international act.
Here, we speak to Director of Wild Paths and Live Events Manager at Voodoo Daddys, Ben Street, about this year’s festival, the acts we can’t miss and why Norwich is the perfect city to hold it!
Voodoo Daddy’s is one of many venues for Wild Paths across Norwich!
I spent a large portion of my formative years touring the world and drumming with Warner-signed, alt-indie band Coasts, playing prestigious events such as Coachella and Glastonbury, plus a BBC Live Lounge session and a top 20 album.
When the band parted ways in 2018, I moved back to Norwich and co-founded a music venue (Voodoo Daddys) and then that led to planning and delivering a city-wide music festival. I’ve always been enamoured with live music and festivals and have been lucky enough to have built a career out of it.
Each year myself and the team sit down together and look at who we want to work with and what spaces and venues we’re excited to incorporate. Then we start firing out emails, booking in meetings and visiting different locations. It’s a fairly reactive and amorphous process to begin with. We prioritise working with local businesses and ethical partners – either charities or socially conscious, sustainable companies.
It’s pretty much a year-round pursuit- from finding and securing funding to the programming, logistics and production elements. It’s a mammoth task!
We’re a young (and predominantly female) collective of bookers, designers, producers and musicians and we’re all Norwich locals. I think this causes us to approach the planning, programming and promotion of our events differently. There’s a focus on promoting local creatives, championing marginalised communities and diverse line-ups and delivering an amazing experience for both attendees and artists.
I also think there’s an adventurousness and youthful energy in the way we dream up new shows and festival events- from acoustic sessions in a hidden street to late-night jazz jams in medieval churches. We want it to be memorable, daring and wild!
This is your chance to experience some amazing live music acts across the city!
There’s a lot going on over the festival period! Bodur’s screening of her amazing full album visual ‘MAQAM’ accompanied by a live band will be pretty special. Make sure you book a ticket for that at Cinema City on Fri 17th Oct.
We’ve partnered with our friends at The Shoebox Experiences to present a couple of very special, intimate acoustic sessions in the underground Hidden Street in the shadow of Norwich Castle. Think soft lowlighting, eerie prison cells, ancient brick structures and forgotten tunnels – with some emotive, stripped-back performances by some of our favourite rising stars.
If you’ve attended Wild Paths before you’ll know all about our late-night jazz jams in a medieval church! Head to St Laurence at the top of St Benedict’s Street to catch the Voodoos Jazz Club band and a host of special guests playing deep into the night on Friday. And make sure you’re back there Saturday night when we invite our all-female and non-binary hosts Peng Femme Jam up from London to curate an amazing night of improv, free jazz, soul, disco and dancing!
For those who like their music on the heavier side, we’ve gone and turned the dial up to 11 and invited a selection of heavier bands to play at a skatepark in a church! Local heroes Other Half are joined by the queercore, savage punk sounds of Shooting Daggers and innovative Bristol band Knives at St Peter’s on King Street.
I’m particularly excited to have the beautiful Octagon Chapel involved this year to showcase some of the best soulful, jazzy, folky and alt-indie artists. From the smooth soulful jazz-tinged sounds of South Londoner BINA. to Brown Horse, Norwich’s own guitar-driven 90s alt-rock band, channelling the folk and country sounds of the 70s. You’d also better make sure you catch Olive Jones here. A London-based singer-songwriter, Olive draws on soul, blues and alt-folk to produce her sumptuous melody driven music.
It’s hard to pick out one artist or event from such a jam-packed line-up but I’d definitely recommend catching Getdown Services on Thursday at St Laurence Church and JGrrey on Saturday there. Both acts have received a lot of critical acclaim, with the former topping Rolling Stone’s ‘Best Acts of Great Escape’ list!
Brown Horse is a local band who’ll be performing at the Octagon Chapel
O. are a truly unique live experience, defying convention and managing to expertly tread the line between the urgent energy of experimental rock and jazz improvisation. Head to everyone’s favourite pizza joint and dive bar venue, Voodoo Daddys on Friday night to catch them.
If you’re after the next wave of neo-soul and future RnB make sure to catch prolific London producer Mom Tudie with his band- headlining upstairs at St Andrew’s Brewhouse on the Friday. Recent collaborator Len Blake will also be playing on the Friday at Octagon Chapel- the rich soul-infused sound of this 20-year-old New Zealand native should not be missed!
Finally, for all you alt-indie heads, make sure to catch Picture Parlour with their cinematic, electrifying rock n roll and Adult DVD delivering chorus centric indie infused with acid-house floor filler.
There’s over 150, so you’re bound to catch something magical and find your new favourite act!
We recommend grabbing a Festival Pass and catching all the action from Thursday to Saturday, but if you can only make the one day then there’s an individual Day Pass with your name on it!
We also have a couple of pre-parties on Tuesday and Wednesday at Voodoo Daddy’s, so if you just want a taste, go and catch local heroes PleasureInc. warming us up for the rest of the fest or Australian post-punk, noise rockers The Empty Threats.
Other tickets available include access to the visual album and live band spectacle at Cinema City on Friday and a host of after-parties including an all-night, worldwide musical exploration from vinyl queen Donna Leake!
Wild Paths includes talks and experiences too
It’s important to set a precedent, to inform and engage with our audiences and to challenge people to go on and make a positive change in the world. As the festival’s profile grows there’ll be more opportunity to reach more people and hopefully challenge some of those outdated and antiquated norms that can be damaging, exclusionary and stand in the way of real progress.
Through working with some amazing partners and charities- Climate Live, Keychange 50/50, Doctors Without Borders, Shelter– we’ve been able to platform some inspiring voices and learnt a fair bit ourselves along the way!
Thank you! It was a real shock, but it definitely gave us the appetite to go again. Keep an eye on our socials for some exciting Wild Fields and Wild Paths announcements soon. 2026 is going to be a big year for us- we shall say no more!
Wild Paths Festival is taking place in venues across Norwich from 14 – 18 October! Check out Wild Paths’ website for the full line-up and to book tickets.
